AGRICULTURE. 231 
s0 healthy, do not inerease so rapidly, do not grow so large 
within the first two years, and do not produce so much wool. 
The land of the sheep ranches in California is not worth more 
than five dollars per acre, on an average probably not more 
than three dollars. It follows that sheep-breeding should be 
very profitable here, and so it is. The ewes, when properly 
taken care of, have lambs before they are a year old—increase 
one hundred per cent. every year. The cost of keeping large 
herds is variously estimated from thirty-seven to fifty cents 
per head annually, exclusive of the interest of the land used 
for pasturage. The wool of a good sheep will pay twice the 
cost of keeping it; and the wool and lamb together, of a fine- 
blood ewe, are worth eight or ten times the cost.” It is the 
present custom to sell the wethers for mutton when a year old, 
but this is bad policy, save with the poorest sheep. 
The old missions had large herds of sheep, but after the 
management of those large establishments was taken from 
the priests and given to civil officers, in 1833, the sheep were 
neglected and most of them were killed. Twenty years 
later very few were left in the state, but there was a demand 
for mutton, so large herds were driven from New Mexico. 
These were a very poor stock, but they were for a long time 
the only sheep that could be had, and they now form the great 
anajority of the sheep in the state. The first attempt to breed 
sheep as an exclusive business in California, since the Ameri- 
can conquest, was commenced in 1853, by a poor man who 
had nothing save nine hundred-ewes; and they increased so 
rapidly and proved so profitable, that now, if report be true, 
he has ten thousand sheep, sixteen thousand acres of land, and 
other property to the value of one hundred thousand dollars. 
Within the last three years many sheep of fine blood have been 
imported, and these will gradually swallow up the Mexican 
stock. The imported kinds are American, Southdown, Aus- 
tralian Merino, French Merino, and Spanish Merino. Of the 
two latter varieties there are few save bucks. The prices of 
sheep fluctuate, but the relative prices of the different breeds 
